The Cream Crested Legbar

Return to Poultry Page
Return to Autosexing Page


In 1927 well known plant collector Clarence Elliott from Stow-in-the-Wolds in Gloucestershire returned from his travels in the Welsh speaking country of Patagonia in South America bringing with him three hens of the 'blue-egged fowl of Chile'. It is known that these blue egg laying hens had been kept by the Araucana Indians of Chile and Patagonia for more than four centuries. In addition to laying blue, green or olive shelled eggs the birds of the Araucauna Indians had crests of feathers on their heads, and many of them were 'rumpless' having no tail. Elliott's three hens subsequently went to Cambridge University where Professor Reg Punnett was studying poultry genetics and were instrumental, with the Legbar, in producing the blue egg laying Cream Legbar.

The Cream Legbar differs from the Gold Legbar and Silver Legbar which lay cream or white eggs in two ways; firstly it lays eggs with blue shells, and secondly it has a crest or head tuft, characteristics inherited from 'blue-egged fowl of Chile': it would probably have been better if the Cream Crested Legbar had been given a different name! Some years later other 'blue-egged fowl of Chile' were introduced into the USA and Britain and were standardised into the 'Americauna' and the 'Araucana' both breeds laying bluish or greenish eggs.

In recent years there has been a boom in the sales of 'novelty coloured eggs' in up-market supermarkets; these are produced by modern commercial hybrids which lay eggs in a range of pastel blues, greens, pinks and peach. Some of these hybrids include "Legbar" in their name and it is important that these are not confused with the blue egg laying Cream Legbar. Unfortunately there are now many cross-breds masquerading as the Cream Legbar.

The Cream Legbar belongs to a group of breeds known as Autosexing Breeds: the 'barring' pattern is sex-linked, the cockerels having two chromosomes for barring and the pullets only one. Day old chicks of a barred breed have a light patch on the top of the head, in chicks with black down both sexes are very similar. When the barring is combined with brown colouring the light spot on the head of the pullets is small and well defined, an in addition there is a very clearly defined dark stripe down the body. In the cockerels the light patch covers most of the head, the down is much paler and there is only a very blurred indistinct body stripe. The Breed Standard give a description of the down colouring.

The Poultry Club of Great Britain Breed Standard for the Legbar includes the Gold Legbar, Silver Legbar, and the Cream Legbar, though the last is usually known as the Cream Crested Legbar because unlike the other two it is crested, and also lays a blue egg. The standard defines the Cream Legbar as a Light Breed with the average mature cock weighing in at 7lb and the hen at 5lb. They are upright, muscular bodied, sprightly birds with the typical wedge shaped body of the laying breeds. The Cream Legbar has the typical flighty temperament which one expects to find in a light breed; they are a little 'twitchy', though they are a delightful, friendly and inquisitive breed and they will become very tame.

The cock is a handsome bird with cream and grey barred feathers. It is an upright bird with a large curved tail. Behind the large single comb the cock sports a small crest or spiky tuft of feathers inherited from its ancestors of the South American Indians. The hens tend to have a floppy comb and a much neater, larger crest than the male; they have brownish silver-grey plumage with broad smudged barring, and unlike the male, have a warm salmon coloured breast. The hens may show some brown colouring to either side of the crest, whilst the cocks may have some chestnut feathers in the crest and in the saddle hackles. The breed was created as a laying breed and colour faults pale into insignificance in comparison to sky blue egg colour and productivity.

Most hen eggs start off with white shells, the final shell colour being added as the egg is formed in the oviduct, the colour is not fixed until the egg is dry and dark brown eggs often show white patches where the colour has been wiped off in the nest before it was fully dry. Professor Punnett carried out research into the blue eggs of Clarence Elliott's three South American hens and in 1933 established that the blue egg colour was the result of a dominant gene, and unlike other shell colours the blue/green of the Araucana egg is not 'painted on' but rather the entire shell is coloured which is a useful guide to the relative purity of the stock in relation to original Araucanas

The Araucana and the Cream Legbar originally laid a blue egg, but the introduction of other breeds resulted in a variation in colour; it is possible to make use of this to produce a range of pastel coloured eggs. When blue egg colouring is introduced to a white shelled breed all the hens will lay blue egg; those from breeds with a tinted egg will lay peachy coloured eggs; those from brown egg breeds will be greenish; and those from dark egg breeds will be olive - with all of them there will be considerable variation in the range of colour.

The Cream Crested Legbar was originally developed from the white egg laying Leghorn, and so generally lays a blue shelled egg; however the Barred Rock, which lays a tinted egg, also played a part in the creation of the breed so it is not unusual for some Cream Legbars to lay light blue/green/olive eggs. The Breed Standard includes a range of egg colours and strains of Cream Legbar may lay a mixture of egg colour, this indicates that either rigorous selection for blue egg colour has not been carried out, or that they are not a pure strain - the purest strains will lay predominantly blue eggs.

Our birds are selected solely for blue egg colour and productivity; we consider feather quality and colour, comb, crest, type and carriage to be of relatively little importance, though having said this we do want them to be typical of the breed! The final selection will always come to laying ability.

Top of page
Return to Poultry Page
Return to Autosexing Page

Top of page
Return to Poultry Page
Return to Autosexing Page